Tears like swimmers threaten to dive off a cliff and splatter my laptop. Any second, they’ll free fall and I won’t be able to stop them. I whisper, “don’t” as my hands tremble to reveal the secret I’ve been hiding for months. Like a scarlet letter—this one single moment became sewn into the fabric of my identity. The fear of someone learning the truth kept the secret burning in my chest and I wanted so badly to not carry the shame anymore.

I try not to dwell on the past as with all of us, because there are hurts like this moment that aren’t completely healed.

As I stared at the typed words, my thoughts drifted back to that awful day—the day my world fell to pieces. My life was shattered by one pivotal moment after another spread over six months. I wondered if my fragmented life would ever be made whole. Like a mended piece of pottery or stained glass window.

It reminded me of the times my grandmother would take to me to church. The windows on each side of the sanctuary were filled with different moments of Jesus and his time here on earth. The church would fill to the brim and I would sit next to my grandma as she raised her hands high while I studied each shade and hue. All the different pieces and colors held together by seams of soldered lead. I always thought the picture would be much prettier if it was one solid piece without all the lines.

If I only looked at one piece, it was just that—a piece. A shape of blue or a square of yellow but when I focused on the whole picture, I saw a masterpiece. I’m reminded of how my life is like that window.

But someone tossed a bolder at it, shattering it to pieces, ruining treasures like trust, kindness, respect and community. I’ve been a part of the process trying to recover all that was broken. Picking up the fragments is a painful process as jagged pieces slice flesh and prick fingers.

I snap back to the present and debate on deleting my email because it’s easier to not get entangled in this life. It’s easier to let the enemy who threw the rock to get away with it rather than fight.

But then I think we as women all have moments when life has shattered and the idea of mending scares us. We’re afraid of the bruised knees, ripped jeans and scars. But those scars are proof of victory moments.

These scars belong to the woman who lost her career.

To the mama who’s standing up for her child who’s being bullied.

To the woman who’s fighting for her marriage on her knees.

To the teen girl who’s walked away from the pressure to give in.

And even then when we feel all is lost, I know there is someone rooting for us.

I know someone who’s battling for us, someone who’s helping to pick up the pieces and he tells me,

“I’m putting you back together again.”

And then I see the whole picture.

Daughter, this is part of the masterpiece. You aren’t broken, if it wasn’t for the seams, how could the world see me?

I take a deep breath and tap send. The message shoots into cyberspace–all the dirty and the ugly and the truth revealed. And then I let the cliff divers run down my face. They splatter the keyboard and I then I realize something about the salty stream, these tears aren’t a sign of weakness, but a reflection that I’m alive and proof there’s still a fierceness in my heart. It’s another piece mended.

Every so often, a friend writes a book that creates change in our lives. Tricia Goyer is a long time friend with one such book. It has coffee stains, scribbles, and ear marks. Today is she sharing a part of that book on my blog today! Heather MacFadyen – creator and host of the God Centered Mom Podcast says, “Tricia doesn’t dictate how you ‘should’ live by faith in God’s Word. She walks it out. Sharing her own redeemed struggles, Tricia guides your heart to embrace Jesus’s unique purposes and helps you ‘take hold of the life that is truly life.’”

How Humbling Yourself In Your Time of Need Changes Everything by Tricia Goyer

The other day I was cooking dinner when my six-year-old son rushed into the kitchen.
Beads of sweat slid down his red face. “I’m so hot. You never get me anything to drink.”
I stirred my spaghetti sauce with one hand as I turned to him. “Excuse me?”
His voice rose in a full, high-pitched whine. “You never give me anything to drink!” He waved his hands and dropped to the floor.
I took in a breath and then released in, telling myself to keep my voice steady, calm. “I’d be happy to get you a drink. I just need you to ask.”
He kicked his foot against the floor. “But I want a drink now!”
“I know you do.” I peered down at him. “And as soon as you ask the right way I’m happy to get some some ice cold water.”
And then my son stood, smiled up at me and asked so sweetly for a drink of water … NOT!
Instead, he whined and fussed more. Finally, I asked him to leave the kitchen.
You know what? He never did ask. In fact, he didn’t get anything to drink until fifteen minutes later when we were sitting down to dinner. He was so bent on complaining and whining—in feeding his discontent—he didn’t want to release his control in order to ask me for help. I would have gladly given him the drink he requested if only he asked in the right away.

Feeding Our Discontent

I wish I could say this is just a little kid issue, but I’ve been there myself. During my teen years I lived in that storm of discontent. I complained when things didn’t go my way. I worried. I fretted. I fought.
I even took matters into my own hands when I found myself facing an unplanned pregnancy at age 15. My own fears and worries led me to a choice I now regret—I had an abortion.
It wasn’t until years later, at age 17 when I was pregnant again, that things took a turn for the better. It’s then I humbled myself and turned to God. By this point I realized the whining, complaining, and acting out wasn’t getting me what I wanted or needed.
At six months along, I wrapped my arms around my growing stomach and prayed, “Lord, if you can do anything with my life, please do.”
God showed up big time. He not own gave me Himself (which is the best!), He has also led me on a journey where radical, and wonderful things, have happened. This has included marrying a wonderful Christian man, having two more kids, starting a crisis pregnancy center, mentoring teen moms, adopting seven more children, and writing over 70 books!
God didn’t just offer me a cup of cool water when I asked. He opened the floodgates of blessing. But it took me humbling myself and seeking Jesus to meet my needs.
This reminds me of a Scripture I was reading just this morning, “I called on your name, LORD, from the depths of the pit. You heard my plea: ‘Do not close your ears to my cry for relief.’ You came near when I called you, and you said, ‘Do not fear.’ You, Lord, took up my case; you redeemed my life,” Lamentations 5:55-58.
Mumbling, complaining and griping is easy, but they rob us of having our greatest needs met. Yet when we humble ourselves and turn to God, things will change for the better.
When we call to the Lord, He hears us. When we turn to Him, He comes. When we call to Him, He reminds us that He is present and we have no reason to fear. When we place our needs in His court, Jesus redeems our life.
It took a lot to humble me as a teen—two unplanned pregnancies in fact. Yet I’m thankful that I learned back then that when I turn to God He will meet my needs. He will meet them in more wonderful ways than I ever expected.

You can read more about how God can show up radically in your life in the book Walk It Out: The Radical Result of Living God’s Word One Step at a Time (http://amzn.to/2wi1Cwi).

If you pre-order Walk It Out before October 1, you’ll also receive 30 Days of Prayer as You Walk It Out FREE! Details here: http://www.triciagoyer.com/walk-it-out/

My throat feels thick and my vision blurs. The mess and memories come tumbling out of my heart and I want to run. Instead I pour all my energy into the swing. Arial Yoga, better known as Flight School in my little hometown.

The room is hot and thick as muscle and sinew stretch, screaming for the familiar. My muscle memory is forced to do something new I think about how I don’t know who I am and I don’t like the new that surrounds me. On my knees in the rubble and the mess and I found myself in the thick of white space. Like a blank canvas, the old ways of my life gone. The things I was driven to be and do.

To write.

To have a voice.

To have an identity.

And then it happened.

Trauma.

Gut wrenching and helpless, I watched everything I had built with my bare hands come tumbling down. Like the walls of Jericho falling. It’s day seven in my life and I’m standing to the rubble. The dust of what was floats across the canyon of my heart. Words, titles, and failures take flight.

I think back to the moment when I saw the walls splitting and cracking. And I whispered “God, what are you doing?”

He whispered back, “Rescuing you from the life you thought you wanted.”

The instructor calls out another pose and I dive backwards of out my swing, head first to the floor, the hammock tight under my knees as I flip to walk forward on my hands. Sweat hits the floor and it’s time to get back up.

I find myself unable to pull myself back up into my swing. Arching my back, I can’t lift my body heavy with emotional strain. My instructor encourages me. Muscles shaking, I tremble and he can see I can’t will my body to do what it needs.

He puts his hands under my back and lifts me up. And there it is. The moment of clarity. I didn’t know I needed rescued, I didn’t know I couldn’t do what needed to be done. I didn’t know I needed my walls to fall.

If my life before had been a comfortable routine, it was now transformed into a unorthodox way of living. If I were to dig through the files of your life, I’m certain to find a defining life change of your own.

And now you’re life is standing in the mess of day seven. Whether you’re ready or not, here comes trial inducing change. And the desperate question of why.

How can I make room for change when I didn’t want it in the first place?How can I live my life well when it fills foreign spiritual white space? A blank canvas.

My instructor calls out for change as he describes how the next pose pushes our body to make room for new muscle and a capacity to breathe deeper. It breathes life into our veins.

Here’s the thing, make no mistake, God will rescue us from the things that keep us from the life he wants for us. He lifts us up to allow change so we can have his presence and strength like never before. He calls us to something better even if we can’t see it yet. He calls us to change. He calls us to a blank canvas.

And then I think about day seven – the day of change can be devastatingly lovely.

We gather once a week. We circle up, each sharing the latest news, anecdotes about work, life, and kids. At one point, Cindy nicknamed our group The Tribe and it’s sort of stuck. If you’re part of a church you may know them by a different name, like life groups, small groups, or community groups. At first we were strangers but as we gather weekly, our stories become threads that weave into each other’s lives. These strangers are now my people. My truth tellers, my warriors, my problem solvers and middle of the night callers. This is my built in family.
This is the tribe that built me.
When I first met this group of women, I was a cynic. Past relationships with women were filled with land mines and battle scars but my life had become dry and barren. As a working mom I would have days that would go on for a life time.
I never made it out the door with matched socks and the kids were always late. It didn’t help my case when my kids would tell their teachers they were late because of my “drinking problem.” My problem is that I don’t function before at least three cups of coffee in the mornings. Try explaining that to your children’s teachers while wearing visibly mis-matched socks. I tell them, it’s still a thing.
And there’s only so much talking I could do with my kids and husband. The guy loves me but not when I try to use up all 40,000 words of things I need to say. Some of he doesn’t get. And really who can blame the guy when I want to talk about the magnitude of choosing the right paint color to create a warm home. And the kids? They didn’t understand the pressure to pick the right shade of green but rather they told me to pick the color of grass green and move on.
So when I was invited to join this group of women, I imagined tortuous moments of stale tiny sandwiches and dissecting the book of Judges which would likely put me to sleep.
But what I found was a group of women all new to each other and the conversations became battering ram revelations that began to take down the fortress around my life. We talked about love and hope, parenting and marriage, redemption and miracles.
The expectations I had about friendships began to change as I came face to face with the real kind. It turns about behind the idea of real community are real life women willing to link arms and do life together if you let them. But that’s the thing, the secret to having a friend is being a friend. The secret to being accepted is acceptance and the secret to getting past someone’s defenses is taking down your own.
This, for me, has been the challenge: to boldly welcome others into the mess that is me. The chance to find real community is to be the real me.
Why don’t we believe that? We insist to our kids they can be loved by being their beautiful selves; but then why do we tell our grown up selves in order to be liked and loved, we have to be the most interesting, the most successful, or the most beautiful? Maybe the surest way to build friendships is to take a deep breath and plunge into the mess.
These days, my tribe and I do life together, we pick each other up when life throws curve balls like the sex talk in fourth grade, when a spouse announces divorce, or when we lament at $500 bill because we hit the trash can backing out of the drive way or we’ve been so busy doing and being and living that we have no clue what it’s like to be our real selves, so we rally for a girls night out.
But that’s a risk right? It’s to risk sharing life, being real. It’s vulnerability. It’s brave.

Heather Riggleman is a child of the Mid-West and a coffee addict without a recovery plan. She is a full-time mother of three, author, and journalist. She is learning to accept the mess after chasing perfect for too many years.
heather.riggleman@kearneyhub.com
@HeatherRig

Tears streamed down my face as I came to grips of what my life had seemingly become. I took stock of reality and quietly let go of my dreams as I wondered, how can God use a broken woman, a mom of three kids who works part time at a retail store, who has a little blog in big wide world of the internet, who doesn’t know God wants anymore, who can’t dig her way out of this pit?

After listening to my thoughts, understanding the full weight of my limitations and feelings of broken insignificance, I think God must have chuckled at my dismay because he turned my attention to the story of Jesus feeding “The Four Thousand.”

In Matthew 15, the people had been with him for three days and He was worried about their physical needs for nourishment when He asked His disciples to take stock of the food among the crowd. Jesus already knew how much food was available but He makes sure his disciples sees the limited circumstances when he asks, How many loaves do you have?”

Like me, his disciples could only see a great need against what they had to offer with “Seven loaves and a few small fish,” on the scale of need for four thousand men among women and children. But here is what catches my breath, Jesus took the small amount of food lifting it up to the father in thankfulness before breaking it. “Afterward the disciples picked up seven basketfuls and broken pieces that were left over.” Matthew 15:37.

Jesus created beauty in the breaking as he multiplied the scant offering of a seven loaves and a few small fish.

Do you feel small and insignificant under the weight of the needs in your life?

As mothers we carry the burden and weight of raising Godly kids. We groan with anxiety and worry against the needs our children have through choices they make, the need of instilling God’s word against the pull of the world.

As women, we feel the ache of being created for a purpose and fall to our knees under the weight where God has placed us.

We take stock of our gifts, dreams, abilities, circumstances and burdens; weighing it against our situation–only to give up because we think God can’t possibly have a purpose for us. We look within knowing there are places so crushed and fragmented within us, we fear our splintered reality keeps God from wanting us.

Yet, these broken places is what God wants. In the cracks, chips and crevices of our souls is where his glory shines through in our lives! Whether or not we come from:

A broken home

A broken past

A broken marriage

A single mom broken from a painful relationship

A broken body

A broken and weak will

A broken heart

A faith shattered and broken

Finances broken to the point of bankruptcy

Broken and damaged children

Your Honest to Goodness Reality

Little mama, I’m standing in the trenches with you. I’m hugging you and wiping your sweet tears with my hands while I cup your chin to hold your attention. I want you to hear me so clearly that this moment will resonate in your soul forever as a focal point–the moment when you stand on His promises and run straight for him. Because he is ready–waiting.

Hear me when I say:

God wants you, His Son is interceding for you. As you offer your life, your gifts, your dreams–even your brokenness, Jesus takes it and turns from your sweet face to our Father God. He lifts up your brokenness and whispers His gratitude. He thanks God for your life. He whispers thankfuls over your offering. God sees that it is good as He multiplies your abilities, gifts, talents, and dreams for His purpose. You and I don’t need to know or understand how He is going to use it, we only need to know one thing: He WANTS TO USE IT. He wants US to be a part of HIS STORY.

And this sweet mama is the taste of God’s glory, his victory reflecting in your life as you surrender all…because you surrender to a God who surrendered everything for us.

The most beautiful part – you and I become whole as God uses our brokenness, pouring out our offerings for his glory. We make the beautiful exchange.

“I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. Whoever loves his life loses it and whoever hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life.” John 12:24-25 ESV

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